KALAMAZOO — Western Michigan University football coach Bill Cubit found waiting and watching other games that mattered to his team’s bowl chances more difficult than coaching.

Broncos senior defensive end Drew Nowak said he was sweating in his chair as several teams WMU needed to lose did so.

“I watched every single game that was important,” Nowak said.

Even after all had fallen the Broncos’ way, no one new for sure that WMU was bowl-bound until the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl called with an invitation Sunday.

WMU (7-5) happily accepted and will face Purdue (6-6) on Tuesday, Dec. 27 at Ford Field in Detroit. The 4:30 p.m. game is on ESPN.

It’s the fifth bowl game in WMU’s history — the previous four all losses — and third of Cubit’s tenure.

“The last three days, all you do is watch football games,” said Cubit, who also led the Broncos to bowl games in 2006 and ’08. “That’s a lot harder than coaching. After the Hawaii game (a loss to BYU Saturday night), I felt good, that we were in, but until you really get the news, you’re always on pins and needles.

“What a great thing for us, for our university, to get to play one more and basically be the home team in Detroit.”

WMU was the road team in its most recent bowl game, against Rice in the 2008 Texas Bowl in Houston.

That experience wasn’t anywhere as financially kind, either. WMU lost more than $300,000.

The university will actually make money on this game, with the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl covering Western Michigan’s estimated $100,000 in expenses, while all the money from ticket sales through WMU is retained as revenue.

Kathy Beauregard

“What we did is a league, we put together a comprehensive budgeted bowl plan of what each bowl’s payout was going to be,” WMU athletic director Kathy Beauregard said. “... When we went to the Texas Bowl it was kind of different.”

Beauregard credited Mid-American Conference commissioner Jon Steinbrecher for not only changing the finances of the league’s affiliated bowls, but locking up several secondary bowl games. Without tie-ins to the New Mexico Bowl and the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, Beauregard said only four MAC programs would have received bowl invites, with the Broncos left on the outside of the postseason.

That WMU wound up in Detroit was no surprise. For WMU, it was Little Caesars or bust almost all along.

The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl had the second selection of MAC teams and Ken Hoffman, the bowl’s executive director, never hid his desire to have the nearby Broncos in his game. In fact, he’s been wishing for it for 15 years.

“They’ve been very close a couple times to making it to the Motor City Bowl, now the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl,” Hoffman said Sunday. “They’ve been a strong program. They’ve got a great following. They’re a very deserving team. They’ve got a few nationally prominent players, especially statistically. I think they’re a bowl-hungry team and a bowl-hungry school and that’s important.”

Hoffman also cited WMU’s high-scoring offense as a draw. The hold up, he said, was finding a home for Toledo and Temple, which landed in the Military Bowl and New Mexico Bowl, respectively. In all, five MAC schools received bowl bids, including league champion Northern Illinois (GoDaddy.com Bowl) and Ohio (Idaho Potato Bowl).

“I think we’re going to have one of the best games and best matchups and probably one of our best crowds and TV audiences in our 15-year history,” Hoffman said, “with Purdue on the other side, finishing strong to get bowl-eligible, beating Ohio State. There’s a lot of talent.”

Beauregard, who’s been working with Hoffman since the bowl’s inception in 1997, said she’s looking forward to seeing the response from WMU’s 113,000 in-state alumni, including 33,000 in Southeast Michigan.

“When you look at the potential of that, with 25,000 students, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to have a sold out, packed house,” Beauregard said.

For the players, especially those who thought their careers and legacies at WMU might be complete, one more game means a lot.

“As much as I talked about going to a MAC championship,” senior wideout Jordan White said, “and having something to leave here with team-wise, the opportunity to play in a bowl game and win a bowl game, that’s something we’ve never been able to do here.”Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@kalamazoogazette.com. Follow him at twitter.com/broncosinsider